Popsicles and Pornography
by Chuck-daddy
Summary: When Darwin eats Anais's last popsicle, things go very bad for him very quickly.


Anais watched the clock on the classroom wall impatiently. She sat at her desk, drumming her fingers, tapping her feet, fidgeting, wishing time would go faster. It was her last class of the day. The teacher droned on and on about banal subject matter she already understood, but the less gifted students needed to be drilled on a few more times. Anais longed to go home.

Besides boredom, she had another reason to be homesick—a sweet, icy, delicious, pineapple-flavored reason. She'd been saving her last popsicle on the freezer for more than a week, and felt it was high time to eat it.

The last ten minutes of class felt like ten decades to Anais. At last, though, the bell rang. She gathered up her books and joined the flood of kids thronging outside to the buses. She boarded, said hello to Rocky, and took a seat near Gumball.

After an insufferably long ride, the bus pulled up to the Watterson house and the three siblings got off. Anais sprinted eagerly through the door, past the lethargic form of her father on the couch, and into the kitchen. She came to the refrigerator and excitedly jerked open the freezer door. She reached inside.

But her popsicle wasn't there. She looked and found the freezer empty except for a bag of peas and the cold mist drifting out of it.

Anais closed the door and calmly walked back in the living room, where Gumball and Darwin had joined Richard on the sofa, watching television. She walked to the TV, which was blaring some mindless prank show, and shut it off. Ignoring her father's and brothers' protests, she cleared her throat.

"Who ate my popsicle?" she screamed. Then she waited, staring them down.

Almost immediately, she saw Darwin begin to sweat. He bit his lower lip and shifted restlessly in his seat. Anais smiled; he was making it too easy.

"Darwin," she said sweetly, "do you have anything you need to tell me?"

He shook his head quickly and pressed his mouth together tightly.

"Are you sure?"

His mouth parted slightly and a stifled squeak escaped.

"You can do it," Anais goaded.

He gulped. "I... I ate it."

Her grin widened, evil and smug. "Now doesn't it feel good to get that off your chest?"

Darwin cringed. "If it helps, I didn't know it was yours," he said desperately.

"Save it, Darwin," she replied, then strode from the room.

Darwin looked and saw Gumball and Richard eyeing him as though he were on death row.

"Dude," Gumball said, "you're screwed."

Later that evening, Nicole had come home, and she and Richard sat enjoying one of the rare moments of peace in the Watterson household. All three children were in their rooms, occupying themselves quietly, which left the living room open for the parents. Nicole snuggled close to her husband, only half-watching what was on the TV. She sighed contentedly.

The combination of her exhaustion from work and Richard's warmth was beginning to lull her to sleep when a shriek of, "Mom! Dad!" rang in her ears. She sighed again, this time wearily, and told herself that she should have known it was too good to last.

Anais came running in, wildly waving a piece of paper.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I found this paper in the hall, and I think it's Darwin's. I thought maybe you should give it back to him."

"Let me see."

Nicole took the paper. It looked to be a story of some sort. Probably a school assignment, she thought. It certainly was in Darwin's handwriting, in any case. She began to read what he'd written, but it wasn't long before she realized that it definitely wasn't intended for school.

As she read, her eyes widened, and her stomach lurched. An indignant heat rose in her face. She lifted her eyes from the paper to Anais, who was still standing there expectantly. "Did you read this, Anais?" she demanded urgently.

"No," Anais responded.

"Good," Nicole said, "now go to your room."

"Why?"

"Don't ask questions," Nicole snapped. "Just go."

Anais shuffled off, grumbling.

Nicole turned to Richard, who'd missed this entire conversation, wrapped up in TV. "Honey," she said, "you need to read this." She brandished the paper at him. "Darwin wrote it. I don't know what we should do."

"But I haven't seen this one," he complained.

"This is more important."

He took the paper reluctantly and read:

_Gumball and Penny were finally alone. They knew they couldn't wait anymore; the longing was too much. They kissed passionately, and Gumball could feel the hardening of his..._

Richard gasped. "Nicole!" he said. "How naughty! Maybe we should go upstairs and—"

"Richard!" Nicole shouted, both intensely horrified and overwhelmingly confused. "That's talking about your son, and did you forget your other son wrote it?"

He looked at the story more closely. "Oh, yeah. I thought the names were just a coincidence. You have to admit, Darwin's a pretty good writer, though."

"Richard!"

"I mean this is disgusting and bad and he should be punished," he said quickly, now cowering.

Nicole smiled and patted his arm. "Hold on, Richard," she said soothingly. "Maybe he's just curious. I think it might be time to give Darwin 'the talk'."

"You mean like you gave me on our wedding night?"

"Yes, honey."

They walked upstairs to Gumball and Darwin's room. Sending Gumball away with a command to go play with Anais, they sat Darwin between them on the bottom bunk bed. He gazed at them innocently.

"What's going on?" he said.

"Sweetie," Nicole began, "your father and I saw the story you wrote, and we think it's time we tell you about mommies and daddies, and what they do together."

"Story?" Darwin said. "What story?"

Nicole produced it from her pocket. "This story," she said, handing it to him.

Darwin took it and read. With each word, his cheeks reddened.

"Um, Mrs. Mom," he said when he'd finished, "I didn't write this."

Nicole raised her eyebrows skeptically. "Yes you did, Darwin."

"No, I didn't. I don't even know what most of these words mean. Mr. Dad, you believe me, don't you?"

Richard remained silent, fearful to incur his wife's wrath any further.

Seeing that his father was of no use, Darwin turned back to his mom. "I've never seen that story in my life, Mrs. Mom."

Nicole swelled with anger, but twisted her face into a forced grin. "Okay, Darwin, I believe you. Sorry for the misunderstanding. We'll just be going now." She pulled Richard out the door and to their own bedroom, closing the door behind them.

"Well," she said to Richard once they were in private, "he's lying to us. I didn't want to do this, but I'm going to call the school."

The next day, as Miss Simian droned about algebra, and Gumball and Darwin sank into torpid daydreams, Mr. Small's voice crackled over the loudspeaker:

"Darwin Watterson to Mr. Small's office, please. Darwin Watterson."

Darwin exchanged looks with Gumball, they both shrugged, and Darwin left the classroom, wondering what could be in store for him.

As soon as the Watterson children arrived home that afternoon, Gumball addressed Darwin about the mysterious summons.

"I don't want to talk about it, dude," was the only answer Darwin would give.

Gumball was taken aback. He'd never known Darwin to be this secretive. However, he remembered all the trouble he had once gone through to get Darwin to spill a "huge" secret which turned out to be virtually nothing. In the end, he decided not to press the issue, and went up to their room to do some aimless Internet browsing.

As Gumball disappeared upstairs, Anais spoke. "Have a good day, Darwin?" she said, barely hiding a smirk.

He shook his head, looking sad.

"What's wrong?"

"Well—promise not to tell?"

Anais nodded.

"Mrs. Mom found this story about Gumball and Penny last night, and they were doing naughty things in it. She thought I wrote it, and then she must have told the school about it, because Mr. Small took me in his office and made me do these weird things."

"Like what?"

"He showed me a picture of Gumball, and at the same time squirted sour stuff in my mouth and whispered, 'Incest is _sin_-cest,' in my ear."

"Wow," Anais said, "that sounds horrible."

"It was."

"But at least you can learn a valuable lesson from all of this," she added thoughtfully.

"What lesson?" Darwin said.

"Keep your grubby fins off my popsicles!"


End file.
